For Marcel Cohen, the adventure of writing is the risk worth taking, one that gives his life both its flavor and logic. Duly noting that in view of the events between the two World Wars of the twentieth century, our biography no longer represents us, Marcel Cohen writes on all sorts of facts. Going where words lead him, with eyes wide open and body in motion, traveling around the globe from wall to wall, be it of waves or lamentations, he dedicates himself to rendering these facts legible, in the order and for as much as his reader will conced to them, and cares about acknowledging his sources. By « absolute literality », he aims at this obscure real « that blinds us ». It's the price he pays for being part of his epoque, giving the book its material of silence and the vast range of its incomparable flavor.

Works quoted:

• Murs (Anamnèses), à paraître en avril 2014 aux éditions Gallimard dans un volume comportant aussi Le grand Paon-de-nuit et Métro.
• Faits, III, suite et fin, Paris, Gallimard, 2010.
• Miroirs, Paris, Gallimard (coll. Le Chemin), 1980 (in fine, à propos du Mur des Lamentations).
• Lettre à Antonio Saura, L'échoppe, Paris, 1997 (in fine, à propos du silence, matière de ses livres).

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